We needed a neutral third party, and I have to disagree with Mr. Bromley’s assertion that the Indian Resources Council is not a neutral third party. They were brought in at the request of the community of Fort Good Hope and the leadership in the community of Fort Good Hope. Thank you.

I understand that the oil companies are hoping to make a lot of money from fracking in the Sahtu, so they can afford to pay for educational workshops and make everything look so rosy, but the government’s role here is to make sure that people have the best information.

Can the Minister confirm that GNWT funds were used to pay for these workshops and that similar funding is available to bring in people who are not industry lobbyists? Mahsi.

The Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment would have helped communities fund these workshops that have been much anticipated in the Sahtu. For a detailed breakdown of costs and who is paying for what, I will make a commitment today to get the Member that information. Certainly, we have been looking for partners to help pay for these workshops. That is how we have gone about this, is partnerships, and if that’s with industry and communities, that’s how we are going to continue to pursue getting people the education that they need when it comes to making an informed decision about hydraulic fracturing here in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I really do appreciate that the people of the Sahtu and the people of the Northwest Territories need to be better informed about fracking. We need to consider the economic, social and environmental benefits very carefully.

When will the people of the Sahtu and NWT have an opportunity to hear about the social and environmental impacts and make informed decisions about what is best for their communities? Will the Minister sponsor a public forum on fracking that will include balanced information on both the positive and negative potential impacts? Mahsi.

Anything we do in that regard would have to be done in conjunction with my colleague Minister Miltenberger, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, and we would certainly look at getting the information out there. If it is hosting another community education symposium or workshop, call it what you will, that is what we want to see happen. We need to continue to get the misinformation off of the table and the real facts put squarely on the table. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Mr. Speaker, what we heard resoundingly in both southeastern Saskatchewan and North Dakota is that if people could do it all over again, they have the ability to plan and get ready for the development. That is what we have here. We have an opportunity. We have some time on our side. There is an application here to hopefully drill and frack two wells this coming winter here in the Northwest Territories.

I believe we can balance protecting the environment with advancing the economy here in the Northwest Territories and getting people the jobs and opportunities that they require. We have to have an economy here. It is going to be, one way or

another, born out of resource extraction, whether it is oil and gas or whether it’s mining. We can plan and we can prepare ourselves. I think that is what we have certainly on our side here. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, certainly I said earlier, I was in Norman Wells over the weekend and people there are ready to go to work. They know what fracking could come to if we don’t do it properly. They know the work is there and they are willing to work and there’s excitement in the region. Certainly, there are issues that Members have talked about that we need to look at.

I want to ask the Minister in regards to doing it properly, doing it right and doing the best they can. We have an opportunity to work in this area here. Is the Minister working closely with the National Energy Board since they will become one of our key authorities on hydraulic fracking, that we can do it properly in the Sahtu with the National Energy Board?

Mr. Speaker, we probably have some of the most stringent regulatory requirements in North America here in the Northwest Territories. Nothing is going to happen unless it is regulated. Certainly after devolution, we will have a regulatory authority here in the Northwest Territories. It remains to be seen exactly how that is going to look. We continue to work towards that.

I want to give the Member and others the assurance that this is not going to be the Wild West with wells being drilled everywhere. We don’t have the issues that they have in North Dakota with a myriad of different land owners and land tenure arrangements. It is pretty straightforward here in the Northwest Territories when it comes to land ownership and opportunities. We can certainly scale and pace this development in the Sahtu according to our needs and the aspirations of the people of the Sahtu and the people of this territory. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I certainly appreciate the Members around this table here talking about hydraulic fracking in the Sahtu region. When I was in the Sahtu over the weekend, people in the Sahtu will determine if they will go ahead with hydraulic fracking or not. The people in the Sahtu will decide just what type of scale it will be at.

I want to follow up with a question from my colleague in terms of public engagement in hydraulic fracking for the people of the Sahtu on environmental, social and economics. Would the Minister work with Members on this side in regards to putting on a government public forum that we can have an all-out, good educational discussion on the impacts of hydraulic fracking?

Mr. Speaker, we can certainly look at that. I would be more than happy to

discuss the opportunity with my colleague Minister Miltenberger of ENR and set out to get some more community workshops and exercises like that underway. One of the things I think will also go a long way to helping community members understand the process is – and I believe the Member saw a big display case which showed a well being drilled and then going out horizontally and explaining the process of hydraulic fracturing in layman’s terms – I think if we put that in the local language and also in English, and put these display cases showing the hydraulic fracturing process, put them in either the band hall or community hall in the communities in the Sahtu, I think this will go a long way. If you can visualize what it is, how it works and read it in your own language or English, I think that will go a long way to helping as well. We are looking at opportunities to partner with industry to help us get these display models in communities across the Sahtu. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask the Minister if he and I could go into the Sahtu this winter when Conoco is doing their testing of the hydraulic fracking, if he and I can go into the Sahtu and visit when they are doing their hydraulic fracking. At the same time, we could have a public meeting in the Sahtu in regards to this operation.

Mr. Speaker, there is probably about 75 million reasons why Conoco does drill those wells in the Sahtu this winter that I can come to the Sahtu with the Member. Certainly, I know industry has been open to getting visits to well sites, allowing people onto their working areas to show them the process, to show them how it works. I must say we had an opportunity near Weyburn, Saskatchewan, to get out on a well that was being fracked. I must say, it wasn’t very exciting. Some of the pressures were going up and the lights were flashing, but certainly the earth wasn’t shaking. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In follow-up to my Member’s statement today about the Nats’ejee K’eh Treatment Centre in Hay River on the K’atlodeeche First Nation, I have some follow-up questions for Minister Beaulieu.

Treatment of addictions is a hugely important issue in our territory. We need to use our resources in the most effective way possible. With the closure of the Nats’ejee K’eh Treatment Centre, which I believe cost around $2.2 million to operate, the majority of

that money was spent on goods and services and the employment of Northerners. If we are forfeiting that, I would like to have the Minister explain for us and for the public so that we are assured that what the alternative is in fact the best and most efficient opportunity for the actual people with addictions. We are losing something in the North with the loss of the treatment centre, so we want to be assured that the alternative is in the best interest of the clients. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The money will remain in the treatment of individuals within the Northwest Territories and some of it will be used to develop a youth program which is starting this week. This week we are meeting with the first opportunity to do a youth pilot program in the Deh Cho, so some of our staff are going to go over there. Some of that money is being used to treat individuals that are going out for southern treatment. We are looking at developing on-the-land programs. Again, some of that money is going to developing some on-the-land programs – in fact, we are piloting three of those programs this year – and some of it will go to mobile treatment. The majority of it, with the exception of the money that is needed to continue residential care for people in the South, will be spent in the North. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, that is very good to hear. That is a very good answer. In terms of the southern treatment residential placements that the Minister has referred to, maybe he could elaborate a little bit for us on the diversity of the location and the type of specialization that these facilities could offer clients. How accessible are these going to be? What kind of waiting times, or are these going to be readily accessible for our northern residents? Thank you.

The four residential treatment facilities that we contract with in the South, one is sort of a culture-based residential treatment that’s been in existence for many years, a very successful residential treatment facility, and that is in Edmonton. There are two in Calgary; one is a residential treatment facility for women and the other is a residential treatment facility that we thought had a lot of success. Another one is in Nanaimo, British Columbia, which is another treatment facility that we selected that we thought had good successes in the past.

The process of getting out to those treatment facilities has been streamlined considerably. Previously to get into Nats’ejee K’eh, you had to be going through counselling for approximately six weeks, then, after that, wait for the next intake. Most of these programs have weekly intakes and

we’re trying to connect to the very next intake, once a person presents themselves as needing treatment. Thank you.

Thanks again to the Minister on that elaboration of what the other options are for residential treatment.

With the re-profiling of these monies that have gone traditionally into the treatment of addictions, what would be the process or the dialogue that would take place with respect to the actual facility of what was in Nats’ejee K’eh Treatment Centre? Is there a possibility still that that infrastructure can be utilized in, perhaps, specialized treatment, if not residential, some kind of a facility? What’s the process? Who’s going to be involved in that dialogue and is there a possibility that that infrastructure can be used again under the umbrella of treatment for addictions? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, it is certainly possible that that facility could remain with the department and be used for some form of residential treatment or support treatment overall across the territory. We are going to be having those discussions with the K’atlodeeche First Nations. It is on the reserve there, and that facility, at one point, was something that they had lobbied for, brought onto the reserve and initially was mostly a cultural treatment facility before it became a medical treatment facility. So there’s a possibility that we may run mobile treatments out of there. It’s also possible to train councillors in a facility such as that. All of those options are still open for ourselves and anybody else who’s going to be involved in building the future for treatment in the Territories. Thank you.